Days before 2009 ended I announced the release of my first book or whatever you wanna call it. As I did so I tweeted that the first 50 people who would retweet the message would be sent a free signed copy [click to continue…]
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Books
I’ve always wanted to write a book. This is NOT it!
So far this year my blog have had more than 115 000 unique visitors and just over 240 000 visits. I’ve written more than 500 blog posts covering everything from design, gadgets, trends, technology, advertising, innovations, personal things, branding and more.
About 28% of the visitors during this last year have ended up reading a post that was tagged with branding. That’s probably not a coincidence since besides trends and creativity I’d say branding is the subject that is the most dearest to me.
When I’ve been looking deeper down into the stats I’ve seen that many of you visitors haven’t really explored my blog beyond the posts on the first page or the actual post you came to read. This is why I thought it made sense to gather them all like this – ‘Top 10 Blog Posts on Future Branding and Communication From Ronnestam.com’ - My first book.
A Book, MashUp, PDF or Whatever You Wanna Call It By Johan Ronnestam
Even though this isn’t actually what I would call a book it’s been the perfect opportunity for me to experiment with the production process of a book. I’ve put a big block in my calendar covering January, February and March and if everything goes right I will present my ‘real’ book sometime in April or May next year. It will be a book on how to integrate future communication with product and service development. One things for sure – I’m doing it on my own. But for now you have to do with this first book, mashup, pdf or whatever you wanna call it.
4 Ways to get your hands on Top 10 Blog Posts on Future Branding and Communication From Ronnestam.com With Love
1. Buy a signed copy of the printed book – 39€ including shipping world wide.
I’ve printed 150 books in Denmark at Norhaven. Out of those 150 I’m giving 50 signed copies away to the first 50 Twitter retweets of this post (if you live outside Sweden you have to pay for the shipping). If you wanna get your hand on one of the other 100 signed ones you either hope to get one at one of my speaking occasions during 2010 or you contact me to buy one for €39 including shipping costs.
2. Download the PDF for free (pay by linking or tweeting this blog post)
Here’s the PDF if you wanna download it and read it off your [click to continue…]
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One thing I love about the internet is the fact that suddenly you find things that haven’t surfaces for many years. Last week, thanks to AdLab I got word of a book by Douglas Atkin – ‘The Culting of Brands’. Douglas wrote this book back in 2004 but as I’m reading it I’d say it’s more relevant than ever.
The Culting of Brands is the fruit of research that has spanned more than seven years. Douglas was fascinated by the way brand addicts expressed the kind of conviction one might only expect at a religious revivalist meeting. If these people were expressing cultlike devotion, he reasoned, then the best way to understand these dedicated consumers was to study the original, cults.
Inside the book book Douglas has listed 10 ‘easy’ steps on how to successfully cult your brand:
An image from Douglas Atkin closed but archived site
- Difference – Distance your cult from the establishment
- Connectors – Recruit successful, attractive and spectable souls
- Exclusivity – Not anyone can join
- Solidarity – A clear sense of belonging to a group
- Ideology – A clear belief system
- Lovebomb – Overwhelm with love
- Paradox – Make joiners feel that they become more individual
- An Enemy – To define what you are not
- Contact – Splash your ideas onto the right people
- Let go – Don’t be a wide-read, psychopathic, control-obsessive cult leader
This is by far one of the best ‘to do’ lists on future branding I’ve seen. I’ve printed this and pinned it to the wall. You should too!
Here are some of my reflections on Douglas Atkin’s 10 steps to successful cult branding:
Number 1 – Differentiation is the key to success. But make sure you don’t differentiate beyond stupidity. The net is overflowing with campaigns and websites trying to reinvent usability. This is wrong. Make sure you measure everything and build yourselves into existing communities first.
Number 2 - Make sure your ’spectable souls’ understand what the internet is all about and how they can utilize social media in order to maintain and extend their network.
Number 3 – Exclusivity should be interpreted as ‘not everyone wants to join’. Every brand out there could and maybe should be accessible for everyone. But when you’re trying to position your brand – positing it so that people love AND hate you! That thing in the middle won’t pay your salary and on top of that it’s a very grey and boring place.
Number 4 – When shaping the tactical execution – build on classical identification systems. Think “I live in Thailand and I like the King so I dress in Yellow”. What markers of excellence can your brand dress itself in?
Number 5 - Ideology. Building a brand requires tons of fans that are prepared to help you. Manifesto or Ideology is a trendy thing today but it also is a very effective lighthouse that people can steer against. If you plan to build a brand focus on one thought should be your first and foremost plan.
Number 7 – Paradox is one of my favorites. People tend to think that because we all like the same brand we are a tribe. That’s partly true. But people almost always join a tribe in order to strengthen themselves as individuals. Don’t forget this! People who wear your brand do it so that others understand who they are, not where they belong! You should get your but over to Elia Mörlings blog Tribaling and dig deeper into Tribal marketing!
Number 8 – En enemy. Per Robert Öhlin, Swedish brand blogger and one of my favorite brand ping pong sparring partners always stress this and I agree more than most. You cannot win a war without knowing who to fight. Pick one not ten!
Number 9 – Contact! The internet allows for different levels of networking. Think hard about how and where you interact with your target audience. Facebook might be the broad scope? Twitter might be more focused? Should you create something like Ideastorm or MyStarBucksIdea for your fans. How do you treat the people within your company? Who out of everyone you interact with truly brings the most value to the table – do you know this? In order to make things even more exclusive. How can you interact offline with your super fans, no matter if they’re B2B or B2C fans? Closed events, exclusive dinners or steering
Number 10 – This is very important today. The transparency is total. People will connect with your brand everywhere. I’ve written about this before but it’s worth repeating. You don’t really own your brand anymore. You merely look after it while we’re shaping it. Listen and listen hard and you might trick us into shaping it the way you like. Ignore us and we’ll turn you into dust before you can say ‘homp chomp’.
Now 5 years after this book was launched I’d say this is more important that ever. We’re living in a complex world with global competition, the consumer is more empowered than ever, new generations are shopping our products, speed is essential and technology is being democratized. Adapt, innovate and change – then you will be a player in this new exiting world!
Ah – forgot. Get the book on Amazon or maybe Bokus if you’re a Swede.
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You might be one of the lucky ones finding yourself logged into your brand new Google Wave account? Then you, just like me, might also think something must be wrong with you since you’re not getting what all the hype is about.
Google themselves has launched a couple of videos showcasing the possibilities with the Wave but now when it’s for real the tool just doesn’t live up to the promises. The video from Epipheo Studio might be a better alternative but it’s still just a short video raising expectations without really teaching you how to do stuff for real.
Don’t worry! Here comes The Complete Guide to Google Wave!
Gina Trapani and Adam Pash has launched The Complete Guide to Google Wave for free online. And soon you’ll be able to buy the PDF or a Book. I know I’ll mail one of those to my Kindle for sure.
The website features 10 sections and I especially like that they’ve also outlines what the Wave cannot do. This is according to my experience one of the main problems with many guides – you’re not getting the negatives. And usually when you don’t find the instructions to how something is done it’s due to the fact that it cannot be done, only no one tells you that so you keep searching for ever.
Lot’s of techie posts lately by the way. Soon I’ll switch to love and emotions!
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One of my latest reads – Seth Godins ‘Tribes’ is a book I can warmly recommend. I especially like the way it talks about consumers today and the need to establish a conversation rather than keep on broadcasting your message without listening.
A simple yet great qoute from ‘Tribes’
Here’s the marketing math:
Ideas that spread, win.
Boring ideas don’t spread. Boring organizations don’t grow.
My thought was to write a longer review of it but then I found that you can download it as an audiobook for free. So, half asleep looking forward to the weekend I’ll save yours and my time and instead give you the link. Here’s Seth Godins ‘Tribes’ as an audiobook for free. Go, listen, change!
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Snow, food and wine. That’s why I haven’t been blogging away the last couple of days. I’m in the Swedish ski resort Tandådalen with my oldest daughter Ebba.
I could not resist however to post this video showing this ABC3D pop-up book by Marion Bataille. It’s a true beauty and shows how innovation really makes product spread themselves. Could you do this with your product catalogue?
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Saturday. Its early in the morning and its snowing outside. I remembered a business case that I thought I should share with you. But my brain seems filled with Slush Puppie and nothing seems to come out of my fingers the way I want it. So, here it comes straight up.
A. Read Getting Real
If you’re working on a web app. If you’re an entrepreneur, designer, programmer, executive, or marketer then you should read the book Getting Real. Its free.
Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals. These guys used the Getting Real process to launch their web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no funding, no debt, and only 7 people.
My favorite tip from the book is:
Ask people what they don’t want
Most software surveys and research questions are centered around what people want in a product. “What feature do you think is missing?” “If you could add just one thing, what would it be?” “What would make this product more useful for you?”
What about the other side of the coin? Why not ask people what they don’t want? “If you could remove one feature, what would it be?” “What don’t you use?” “What gets in your way the most?”
More isn’t the answer. Sometimes the biggest favor you can do for customers is to leave something out.
This book lines out how companies should work in 2010. It’s about staying agile, small, skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.
B. Learn how to make money of a book based on the Getting Real case.
This book also makes a wonderful case that FREE works. 37 Signals are giving away the book for free reading online. Then you can buy a PDF for 19$ or the Paperback for 25$.
The PDF has sold more than 30000 ‘copies’. Money that goes straight into the pocket of these guys. No distribution, no middle men, no costs. More than 570 000$ earned on a PDF. I definitely know some writers that would go bananas for that money.
C. Manage your projects online with Basecamp.
Last but not least. The project management application created by the same company “Basecamp” is a killer app. Anyone working with projects should look into this one. Its absolutely the best one you can find online. And compared to a lot of the older ones. The basic version that allows you to run 15 Active Projects with unlimited clients/users costs $24 a month.
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Until now I’ve been a fan of the Moleskine notebooks. However, this Action Book from Behance Outfitters made me click buy now. Now I can’t wait to get 10 of these in my snail mail box. The Action Book is part of a concept called Action Method.
The pages are made of 80lb Premium Blend paper with a subtle texture (30% post-consumer recycled), printed full bleed, double perforated, and three-hole punched between both perforations for maximum flexibility. What I especially love is the way they’ve created a Notebook that combines structure with creative freedom. Process is half the job done.
The four distinct zones on each page provide a flexible template to get the most out of meetings and everyday brainstorm sessions.
1. Capture Action steps, relentlessly.
During a brainstorm/meeting or on the run, ideas can come and go unless they are captured as action steps.
2. Tend to your Backburner.
Keep a “Backburner” to catch ideas that may someday become actions. Whether it is an idea for the future or some small errand you want to remember, put it in the backburner and then forget about it.
3. Think beyond lines and boxes.
The dot matrix on the front and back of each page serves as a subtle guide for your notations and sketches.
4. Preparation and Focus Items.
Plan for meetings beforehand and be sure to address your focus items.
Damn. If this work I’ll be popping ideas like Shrek high on Swampfrogs.
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